Outdoor living areas and pools are still popular furnishings.
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The American Institute of Architects' latest survey looks at home and real estate design trends for the second quarter of 2025. Each quarter, the professional association asks its members to fill out questionnaires about what they see in their offices, then compiles reports from hundreds of responses. Five of the design trends in this report fit into a conversation about wellness design.
Trend one: Decreasing size
Why is this a wellness trend? First, less square footage means less cleaning and maintenance, and less heating or cooling. Both, especially air conditioning, mean more financial security and more money for healthy activities. It also means a possible return to what architect and author Sarah Susanka described in her book series “Not So Big House”: houses that meet human scales and are designed for comfortable living. In the liner notes for 2008 10Th The anniversary edition states: “The author's message of 'Build better, not bigger' has been embraced by a generation of readers looking for alternatives to soulless, oversized homes…” I think this is even more true in the wake of the Great Recession and the Covid pandemic.
Another indicator of the decline in size was the AIA's observation that home sizes declined significantly in entry-level homes, but only slightly in the custom/luxury segment. The former points to the affordability crisis and how some developers are dealing with it by offering homes on smaller footprints with fewer amenities, as I wrote in a September article titled “What does unattainable homeownership for Generation Z mean for the country?” reported.
Trend two: Popularity of rental units/ADUs/micro apartments
This growth also likely points to the country's crisis in housing affordability through earning opportunities, but it may also point to the growing intergenerational trend that Pew Research says accelerated during the Great Recession.
There are adult children and grandchildren moving back with their parents, and parents moving closer to adult children and grandchildren – sometimes called “baby hunting.” This reflects the norms of an earlier era that gained momentum during the economic downturn but also made a comeback during the pandemic; At this time, nursing homes began sending their residents home for safety reasons, and those who stayed felt severely isolated and lonely.
Trend three: Reduced accessibility
This significant trend is at odds with the second and the need for more accessible housing in this country. Very little of our country's housing stock is age-friendly for residents or accessible to guests with limited mobility. A 2020 Census.gov post said: “Only 10% of U.S. homes have key amenities for housing older residents, report says: Old Homes, New Needs: Are U.S. Homes Ready for an Aging Population?” Current statistics suggest that 10,000 Americans will turn 65 every day this year. This is a significant mismatch of needs.
According to the AIA survey, both overall designs for aging in place and for easier accessibility within the home declined significantly in the most recent survey. I can only attribute this to the fact that inflation pushes all non-immediate needs into the background.
Trend four: Outdoor living spaces still popular, but declining from 2024
Extending your indoor living spaces to your deck, patio and other outdoor living areas continues to top the list of outdoor features, the survey reports, but has declined in all categories examined compared to last year. (This is also likely a result of inflation, which has postponed many projects.) Security lighting and pools saw the least change.
According to the latest Gallup poll, security lighting makes sense given 49% of Americans' fears of crime, while pools are a feature that can't easily be improved later. (For example, if you're remodeling your kitchen, you can add cabinet accessories in the future and temporarily reuse some appliances and faucets.) However, if you want to have a pool on your property, you'll need to determine the size and amenities you want to live with for as long as you own the home, since changing it later isn't realistic.
Trend five: Batch sizes are declining
As with smaller homes, smaller lots are no surprise. Of course, the affordability of land is a crucial factor, but so is the maintenance, insurance and protection of the property from natural disasters. Lot sizes have been trending downward since what the National Mortgage Professional called an “anemic housing recovery” after the Great Recession, but the growing affordability and insurance availability crisis could be exacerbating the problem.